Background

Aerial emissions from and the sustainability of the livestock sector as a whole has been receiving more attention in Europe than in North America, mainly due to urban encroachment and stronger governmental commitments to reducing GHGs and NH3 emissions. Emission of aerial pollutants from the storage of poultry manure/litter has received some attention recently in terms of mitigating GHGs. Two recent studies have studied the effect of composting broiler litter with biochar however their results are not consistent in that Agyarko-Mintah et al. (2017) showed that composting poultry litter bedding in the presence of biochar could reduce the emissions of N2O and CH4 while Sanchez-Garcia et al. (2015) showed no impact on greenhouse gas emissions from composting poultry manure with straw with a 3% biochar added. Sanchez-Garcia also noted that the degradation of organic matter was accelerated. Neither study looked at the effects of biochar on emissions of NH3.